Aug 30, 2026 · 1 hr 15 min · 14 segments
For more than six decades, Woodstock's resident magician Alan Eisenson, known professionally as Just Alan, has made magic from his own life. In this episode, we discuss "Just Alan - Not Just Magic," a…
Let's get beyond just showing somebody a puzzle and frame it so you're giving people a magical experience.
You're actually taking them on a journey and the magic is the punctuation of the story, of the journey.
You're listening to The Magic Book Podcast, conversations about classic and contemporary books that teach, illuminate, and celebrate the art of magic.
I'm your host, Adrian Tennant, a lifetime student of magic and mentalism, occasional performer, and longtime book collector.
My guest today has spent more than six decades making magic that is unlike anyone else's.
Born in New York City and raised in the Bronx, Alan Isenson has been known professionally for most of his life simply as Just Alan.
He was, for many years, the resident magician of Woodstock, New York, where he and his wife Juliet ran first one, then two stores, and where a magic department and a cafe became a daily laboratory for a body of work rooted in his own life.
In 1997, Alan entered a ten-minute piece called The Sands of India into the Society of American Magicians National Stage Competition, having been told by two people he trusted that he could not possibly win.
Alan is a long-time figure at Jeff McBride's Magic and Mystery School, a teacher of Kyoto, a practitioner of meditation, and a man who said that his aim in life is to travel from birth to death with the least possible anxiety.
Alan's work is now collected in a limited edition book written and illustrated by Jay Fortune, edited by Dr. Larry Haas, with a foreword by Jeff McBride and an afterword by Brad Henderson.
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